What is Exchange Server SE and how is it licensed?

Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) is the successor to Exchange Server 2019, released in 2025. Functionally it is an in-place upgrade from Exchange 2019 CU14 with no schema change — the same servers, the same admin model.

The licensing model is the change. SE moves Exchange from perpetual + CAL to a subscription: you pay annually per server and per CAL, with continuous updates as long as the subscription is active. There is no "perpetual" SE — Microsoft is consolidating on subscriptions for on-prem server products, starting with Exchange.

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